Beer Can Shoved Up A Turkey's Ass - Bon Appetit!

Thanksgiving has come and gone. So perhaps this post is what is referred to as "a day late and a dollar short", but despite that fact, I feel it's a worthy topic of touching upon. The subject of the day - Beer Turkey. Yes, there is such a dish and I'm going to fill you in on what exactly it is and how you can achieve this masterpiece in your own kitchen! Impressed yet? Now don't get worried, we all know I can't cook well and I don't hide that fact. So rest assured that I will not really be teaching you how to cook, but rather sharing the steps and other information I gathered from a little site called "Cooking For Engineers".

You have most likely heard of all the different ways you can prepare a turkey dinner, like TurDuckin (turkey stuffed with duck) or even that deep fried turkey thing that all the 300lbs kids are begging their Moms to make. Beer Turkey is different though. Obvisoly the two main ingredients would be beer and turkey, but it's how you combine these too "delicacies" that makes for great conversation with your Mom, Grandmother, Aunts, sisters and other relatives in the kitchen during the holidays. You take any beer can of choice, just shove it right up the turkey's butt and let that sucker cook just like that. You heard me right. Tell Granny to cover her eyes with that apron because the turkey may of thought he had it bad when his head was chopped off, well he should be thankful that his head is not around to witness this unsightly act about to be performed on his dead lifeless body! Am I making your mouth water yet?

People who didn't know Michael Chu was an engineer could probably figure it out from his approach to cooking a turkey. This year, rather than simply turning on the oven, Chu smoked the bird while steaming it from inside with an open beer can. First, he calculated he'd need a 24-ounce can to fit snugly in a turkey's large cavity. Then, while photographing the bird cooking, he analyzed the effect of the beer steam on the finished product. "I'm not sure it's adding that much flavor because as it evaporates, my feeling is the beer is simply concentrating in the can, but there are people who say it does add flavor" said Chu. He posted the results of his pre-Thanksgiving test on his website, Cooking for Engineers.

While cooking a Thanksgiving dinner doesn't have to be a complicated, technology-intensive task, geek chefs are finding new ways to make it one. From next-generation turkey fryers to grease-sucking sticks to a newly patented method of prepping poultry for grilling, inventors are creating fresh takes on the traditional feast. At the same time, many established but obscure methods are gaining a following. For step by step instructions on how to turn that 20lb Butterball carcass into your own Beer Turkey, visit the site I linked to above.